Ffion Hague profile: The likely one | Politics | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close When William Hague launched the Tories' bid for Downing Street earlier this month with his controversial "journey to a foreign land" speech, there was one young woman in the audience who was particularly attentive. She stood out a mile. A blonde woman, dressed in a black trouser suit, with long straight hair and a toothy smile. She sat bolt upright in the second row of the audience, hands resting demurely on her lap, chin uplifted, eyes front. This woman looked stylish, modern, professional - yet here she was, at one of the least promising dates in the political calendar, the Conservative Party's Spring Forum in Harrogate. She applauded on cue, she laughed in all the right places, and when the time came, she leapt to her feet for the obligatory standing ovation. As the applause rippled around the auditorium, the shaven figure on the podium lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the stage lights and searched among the faces below; there he spotted her, summoned her, and led her to the front of the platform. A collective sigh of contentment went up from the floor.

It was Ffion, the Tory leader's partner of three years and the perfect political wife - attractive, discreet, supportive and, most vitally of all, mute. We don't know what Ffion Hague thinks about anything. Not many of us even know what she sounds like, which is a shame because her voice is a delight - deep, dark, smooth, sexy. ("A fantastic phone-sex voice," one political correspondent raved.) Her public life as a political wife is an unilluminating round of Tory fund-raisers and formal engagements, playing second fiddle to her husband, deferring to him, standing behind him, taking care not to upstage. She never does interviews, though she will oblige with the occasional photocall in which she is pictured in an expensive dress next to her husband. It is where her professional and private lives meet that Ffion Hague becomes interesting, and both are enigmatic. By all accounts, extremely competent, ambitious, directed, at age 33 she is building a very successful career as a high-powered, and highly-paid, head-hunter - by its very nature secretive work, conducted in the shadows, where discretion is paramount.

And though her private life is the subject of endless political gossip and speculation, it remains a tantalising mystery why this intelligent, attractive young woman ended up marrying the deeply unpopular, uncharismatic William Hague, whose chosen career in politics hangs in the balance. In 10 or 20 years' time, it may be Ffion looking back on her dazzling career and William who will be perceived to have made a brilliant match. It is a frustrating business trying to make direct contact with Ffion Hague. She's the sort of woman, I was told, that you'd like as a friend. Someone who had played with her in the National Youth Orchestra of Wales told me the young Ffion Jenkins had always been a bit square, a bit naff, a bit too earnest to be really good fun, but she was someone who "had soul". Which is one of the nicest things you can say about anyone. So the Guardian put in repeated requests with Conservative central office for an interview - the answer was always no. We asked to be put in touch with friends, family and colleagues - they came up with a couple of names of party and professional colleagues. Family were strictly off limits.

We asked to be given a list of her public engagements (she does about 100 a year), but even that wasn't forthcoming. In the end, they told me I could see her at Harrogate, where she would be accompanying William for the weekend, but there would be no chats. I was allowed in purely in the capacity of observer, spy, stalker. As it was, she was there for less than 24 hours, the majority of which she spent hidden away in her bedroom amid the swirly-patterned carpets of the Moat House Hotel. She swept into town late Saturday afternoon in a white Range Rover and sailed through reception with a lovely smile for the media and nothing else. Later in the evening, she emerged from her suite for a couple of tightly controlled appearances at fringe meetings, and on Sunday she and William dashed for the Range Rover shortly after 10am, returning mysteriously 20 minutes later. No one would tell us where they were going or when they would be back, though it emerged later they'd been for a stroll in a nearby park.

It seemed an extraordinary level of secrecy and paranoia, when a pleasant picture of Ffion and William strolling arm in arm in snowy Yorkshire might have won them a few column inches, if not some votes. Finally, there was the leader's speech, the climax of the weekend. As the faces of modern conservativism were presented grandly to the audience (the biggest cheer reserved, as always, for Ann Widdecombe) the genuinely modern Mrs Hague slipped in unannounced through a side-door, her entry as carefully stage-managed as her husband's - his for maximum impact, hers for minimum. During the ovation, she stood stiffly alongside him holding his hand, her smile sticking drily to her teeth. Then they walked out, hand in hand like children, exchanging pleasantries with party members, and back to the Range Rover, in which they were whisked away like royalty. What did it all reveal?

That she is fiercely protective of her own privacy; that she is uncomfortable in front of cameras; that she can work a room like she's been doing it all her life - charming everyone she meets, making middle-aged men go weak at the knees; and that, despite her social ease, three years down the line she is still struggling with her role as political wife. And what an unenviable role it is - all that smiling and deferring to your husband. At one meeting in Harrogate, as Hague addressed Conservative Future (a rowdy group formerly known as the Young Conservatives), Ffion stood on the stage like a reluctant beauty queen, two paces behind William's right shoulder. She did not look happy. It is said that it is Tory central office keeping Ffion reined in. They don't want her doing interviews in case she drops a clanger, or taking centre stage in case she outshines her husband. But everything I heard suggested that it is Ffion who sets the rules for her involvement in the party - no interviews, no speeches, but she will buy an expensive frock and go on William's arm to some dinner. Is that a triumph for feminism? I don't know.

Ffion might have maintained her independence in many ways - she has her own professional life and earns perhaps double what her husband makes - but the role she has assumed of glamorous, silent, supportive, adoring wife is still regarded by many as demeaning. She's unwilling to have a voice or develop an independent public role, but still allows herself to be used as a rather intelligent clothes horse to humanise Hague and make him more attractive to voters. The Tories must therefore have been delighted with a recent survey among students which suggested that 70% of heterosexual males would prefer to have a relationship with Ffion than Cherie Blair. (On the other hand, of the gay men questioned, 80% preferred Blair to Hague - but maybe that's a good thing.) "She's seen as some sort of Conservative-party glamour figure, whose clothes and hair are worthy of comment as if she was Liz Hurley," says one old friend.

"I would imagine that for a girl who had very high credibility in terms of intelligence and work and culture, to be portrayed as some sort of blonde bimbo, whose views have not been sought on anything, is the exact inverse of what she had spent most of her life trying to achieve." Charlotte Metcalf, who spent months filming the Hagues for her Channel 4 documentary Just William - And Ffion, says Mrs Hague clearly does not feel at ease with this aspect of her role. "You can see as the car arrives at any event, her face starts to change. One of the reasons she doesn't like it, is she resents having to be the smiling wife, as opposed to being a person in her own right. No one is interested in her as Ffion. They are only interested in her as William's wife. I would hate it. Any modern woman would hate it." And with the general election coming up, the pressure on her to support the party effort has increased. After taking advice from friends and colleagues, she is now very much Mrs Ffion Hague, rather than Ms Jenkins, as she used to be known professionally.

It has also been announced that she will accompany her husband around the country during the election campaign - last year it was reported that she intended to stay at her desk at Leonard Hull International, the head-hunting company she works for. "They've worked this out between them," says a friend within the Tory party. "She wants to support him and be with him whenever he needs her, but she's not interested in having a separate political existence. She's much more in the role of Norma Major and Denis Thatcher. Not like Cherie Blair or Hillary Clinton, who have their own political agendas, Ffion sees her role much more as one of support." David McDonough, director of Bell Pottinger Consultants, who came to know Ffion when she worked for the arts sponsorship organisation Arts & Business between 1997 and February 2000, and has remained a close friend, was one of the two people I was put in touch with by Ffion's advisers. So this clearly is what she wants people to hear. "Her view of her role in life - whether it's as a head-hunter or as a politician's wife - is, if it helps and pleases William, then it's right.

If it does not help and please him, then it's wrong." Which is an interesting statement. Most of us would want to be supportive of our partners, but the idea that something is wrong if it doesn't please or help them seems extreme. McDonough adds: "I've never seen such unvarnished, undiluted old-fashioned loyalty, not of the stupid and slavish kind, but proper, grown-up, stand-by-your-man kind of loyalty." He's right. Such loyalty, such unquestioning devotion, is not fashionable these days, especially not among intelligent, high-achieving, independent young women such as Ffion. But somehow it fits in with what we know of the young Ffion, an earnest, swotty, decent little girl, who always wanted to do the right thing; a talented child who wanted to please her family and live up to their ambitions. Even when she was at primary school she took life very seriously indeed.

When other girls were kissing boys behind the bike sheds and listening to Wham!, Ffion Jenkins, dressed in folksy long skirt and prissy blouse, was performing at the Eisteddfod or playing clarinet (brilliantly) in the South Glamorgan Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. "Ffion was really quiet, really coy and very, very square. Relentlessly square," says Hannah Griffiths, who played in both orchestras with her. "She was mousy brown and a bit goofy, but she was incredibly genuine. If you were upset because you couldn't get off with the trombone player you fancied, she would be very nice to you. She's a bit prim, but she's all right, Ffion." The younger of two daughters, Ffion Jenkins grew up in the comfortable Cardiff suburb of Rhiwbina. Her family are at the heart of the Welsh establishment - the crachach, or Taffia, memorably described by Kim Howells MP as "probably the most effective backscratching organisation outside of Sicily".

Her father, Emyr, a former TV presenter, director of the Eisteddfod and chief executive of the Arts Council of Wales, is a leading light in the Welsh-speaking cultural elite. Her mother, Myra, was a Welsh tutor and magistrate. Childhood friends remember Ffion as likeable, hard-working and clever. "She was possibly the most intelligent person in the school," says Richard Grigg, now a prospective parliamentary candidate for Plaid Cymru, who was at Bryntaf primary school with Ffion. "There was never any doubt she was going to do well for herself." From Bryntaf, both Grigg and Ffion went on to Ysgol Gyfun Glantaf, a high-achieving Welsh-speaking comprehensive, where again Ffion was a model pupil. From an early age she was ambitious and serious-minded. In the third form, when her classmates were discussing where to go for a school trip - London or Alton Towers - a straight-faced Ffion suggested a visit to the National Library in Aberystwyth. She left school with three As and a B at A level, plus distinctions in special papers in English and Welsh.

It was at Jesus College, Oxford, where she read English, that she began, for the first time, to enjoy a social life that did not revolve solely around her musical and cultural interests. "She was certainly not a party animal, but in contrast to the goody-goody, swotty image she had before then, she was good fun," says one of her contemporaries. She got involved with the Welsh Society and on one now legendary occasion had to be taken to hospital for stitches in her leg after a drunken incident with a ceremonial sword. The soubriquet Jolly Jenkins came after that - compounded by her later membership of a London-based Welsh society called SWS (the Welsh word for kiss and an acronym for Social Welsh & Sexy), which probably sounds saucier than it is. She remained independent and self-contained; she sang in the choir, she had a boyfriend, she studied hard (at Oxford, the view was that she was very bright, but not in the superleague), and after her first degree went on to do a postgraduate course at Aberystwyth university, where she wrote her thesis on the 18th-century poet Thomas Gray. She was - is - an utter perfectionist.

She wants to excel; everything she attempts, she does to the best of her ability. In 1991, she joined the fast track of the civil service, where she quickly impressed her bosses, and at the age of 27 became private secretary to the then secretary of state for Wales, John Redwood. She was considered to be so good at her job that she was seen as future permanent secretary material. It was then that she transformed herself from mousy brown to blonde. Her make-over was effective, but not dramatic; look closely at her today - she's attractive, but there's still a slight schoolgirl goofiness about her face, and it's all the more interesting for it. It wasn't just Ffion who excelled in the Jenkins family. Her older sister, Manon, was a tough act to follow. "There was some competition between them," says an old family friend. Both were talented musically; Manon went to Cambridge, where she subsequently did her PhD; Ffion went to Oxford.

Emyr Jenkins, proud of his high-achieving daughters, would say a bit pompously: "Let's put it this way, it doesn't matter in our house who wins the boat race." To his delight, at one stage while Ffion was working for the secretary of state for Wales, Manon was working for the Prince of Wales as his assistant private secretary. Between them they pretty well had Wales sewn up. When Ffion said she was getting married to Redwood's successor at the Welsh Office, Manon reportedly said to her parents, "Oh well, that's the end of sibling rivalry." The story of Ffion and William's courtship tells you something about both of them. It began with a gorgeous day in the hot summer of 1995, on the wall of a churchyard in the shadow of Snowdonia. They were on a tour of Wales, it was just starting to get dark, and for two hours Ffion sang the Welsh national anthem to him, over and over and over again in order to avoid him suffering the embarrassment Redwood had experienced by not knowing the words.

It took Hague a year to ask her out; they conducted their relationship in secret and within four months, to many people's surprise, they were engaged. There's an entertaining story about how Hague hosted a drinks party at the Welsh Office before their relationship was public knowledge. At the end of it, Ffion was naturally keen to find out what friends of hers attending the party thought of him. They told her they liked him very much, particularly one gay friend, who confided: "He's obviously batting from my side." Shortly afterwards, the engagement was announced, much to the friend's embarrassment. Ffion took a sabbatical; she never returned to the civil service but made a career change, pursuing her passion for the arts as a director of Arts & Business. And the couple got married. Kate Jennings, Ffion's boss at the Welsh Office, offered an insight shortly before the marriage: "I can say candidly that she is ambitious as well as clever. She is not a naive girl who has been swept off her feet. I don't believe this was a passionate affair. They like each other, but it would be a bit much to describe their relationship as a great love match.

"Ffion is charming, a very nice woman - extremely capable and not to be underestimated. Her political judgment was not particularly developed at the Welsh Office. Even so, she did not strike me as a natural Tory. She's a Blairite more than anything else. England offers her more than Wales did, and marriage to William Hague offers even more. She finds this terribly exciting." It's hardly the stuff of great romance, but neither are many other marriages. Nevertheless, the relationship has been dogged by rumour and speculation. It's not helped by Ffion's obsessive privacy and the spinning that goes on, the anecdotes about Ffion and William, wrapped around each other in a smoky corner of a London jazz club; passionate kisses in the gardens surrounding their Dolphin Square flat, around which - journalists are told repeatedly - they pad barefoot, glasses of red wine in hand, laughing ceaselessly. It may all be true, but to those with suspicious minds it all sounds a little staged. Yet everyone I spoke to who had some degree of intimacy with the Hagues testified to the genuineness of the relationship. Those who did not know them well were the ones who voiced doubts.

Metcalf, who spent months filming them, was convinced by what she saw. "She thinks he has the most fantastic brain. They are very, very similar. They have a very similar sense of humour. They have very similar interests. They are real soul mates. All the time we were filming, they could not wait to see each other. They're quite touchy-feely. Always, in the back of the car, they were giggling and whispering. I think they're like brother and sister. They just really, really like each other." The brother-sister analogy was echoed by others who have seen them from close quarters. Another one-time friend of the couple said: "The relationship I witnessed was a full-on, affectionate, jealous relationship. She was jealous of the people who reduced the amount of time she spent with her husband." Unlike most senior political figures, Hague sets aside Sundays to spend with his wife at their home in Catterick, north Yorkshire, and no one is allowed to interrupt that time without very good reason. They try to spend as many evenings a week together as possible, they take more holidays than most - they travel to America at least once a year and have recently discovered Spain.

Another journalist unexpectedly came across them in an otherwise deserted hotel in the Brecon Beacons where they were weekending - they looked engrossed, involved, deep in conversation. "Whatever one says about this marriage - that it's a kind of show marriage, or cover for other things - they really do seek out a lot of time to be together," says Metcalf. "If it was a show marriage, there wouldn't be any need to be going off constantly for weekends in Spain or to Yorkshire." On one occasion, Metcalf recalls Ffion spending eight hours travelling to Yorkshire just to spend a single day with him. Filming was a tricky business - interestingly, it was Ffion who did all the negotiating, not William. "There were so many rules. At the beginning there was no way she was going to be in it at all. It was a matter of slowly, slowly, slowly convincing her to do it. She did not want any filming of her on her own. If you overstep the line, she can be very frosty. She's very calm about it. Quite icy." In one hilarious scene, the Hagues were filmed on a country walk dressed in identical hiking gear.

"I came down from my hotel room and there were Pinky and Perky with their walking sticks. Part of you wants to weep, but it's really sweet in another way." And there was an extraordinary moment when Metcalf asked Ffion whether it had been love at first sight. "It seemed to me an absolutely anodyne question," says Metcalf. "But she really, really resented it." Plainly taken aback, Ffion replied frostily: "You can't ask questions like that." Hague tried to placate her, patting her affectionately on the knee but it was hard for them to disguise how upset she was by the intrusion. "She did look a little ill at ease and a bit cross on occasions during the film," agrees McDonough. "There were awkward moments. She will not discuss her private life. She's frankly too private and too dignified a person to want to go into all that." But not too dignified to play along with an ill-conceived Tory central office stunt in July 1999 involving a £1,500 diamond-encrusted pendant in the shape of a pound sign.

It was supposed to be a gift from a husband to his wife - but was exposed as a crass attempt to exploit William and Ffion's relationship to improve his public image, while simultaneously using her as a walking advertisement for his campaign to keep the pound ahead of the European elections. The pendant was commissioned by the head of the Conservative media unit and Hague's chief spindoctor, Amanda Platell - who is also a friend of Ffion. Platell even had to pay for the pendant after the jeweller complained the bill had not been settled and the romantic Mr Hague had to pay her back. Not nice. The debacle did little to subdue speculation that the marriage was less a love match than one of political expediency. Ffion's friends play down the incident. "She still wears it," one girlfriend told me. "She says people are disappointed if she doesn't get it out occasionally. In any case, she ended up with some very nice diamonds." But it's hard to imagine Ffion dismissing such a tawdry little mess so easily. This is someone who takes herself and her image very seriously. She will know how damaging such publicity can be - not just for William and the Tory party but for her, too.

Professionally, she has a lot to lose - she will not want her career prospects damaged by the ineptitude of either her husband or the Tories' media machine. Similarly, two years earlier, at the Tory party conference, she came a cropper when over-excited spindoctors briefed the media that the then Ms Jenkins would be wearing a stunning, diaphanous dress by a top designer. The waiting press corps were expecting something akin to that Liz Hurley safety-pin moment; instead, Ffion appeared in a nice, but rather ordinary, black lace dress which led to unflattering observations about her figure. It wasn't the dress that was the mistake, it was the spinning - without it, photographers would have taken some pictures of Mr Hague's fiance and would have left quite happy. That seems to have been a turning point for Ffion in her role as wife of the leader of the opposition. Stung by the personal criticisms, she seemed to disappear from public view, re-emerging with much greater control of her image. If she makes mistakes, she wants to make her own. "She certainly does have a good angle on the press and how she wants to control the people around her," said one former friend.

"She's slightly prima donna-ish about the way her image is preserved, in the way you imagine Princess Diana to have been. She almost cultivates that not-being-seen image. It's probably quite well thought out. She wants to create a mystique." The same acquaintance, who did not want to be named, also alluded to Ffion's influence over Hague. "It was always made clear that in order to get things past William you kind of had to have a passport from her. If you were trying to convert William to think about things, you had to be acceptable to her." The female "power-behind-the-throne" theory is seductive, but unlike Hillary and Cherie, Ffion is not a political animal. She may have been involved in Operation Hague to overhaul her husband's fuddy-duddy image, but she has no political record of her own; she was never involved in student politics (which at the time of their engagement was seen by senior party officials as a stroke of luck), and you can't imagine her discussing with her husband into the wee small hours the finer points of the Tories' health policy.

It's hard to imagine what they discuss at all, but just by virtue of her background and Welshness, it's easy to see there may be political differences - for example, Hague opposed devolution, which she must have been bound to support. Contemporaries who were with her at Oxford find it hard to believe that the liberal-minded undergraduate they knew feels comfortable with some of the more extreme views of the modern Tory party and its leader. And a couple of sources suggested that at one time Ffion considered becoming a Liberal Democrat. "It's complete rubbish," a close friend said. "It was a friend who approached her. She considered it out of courtesy. But her instincts are very much like William's. She's a small c conservative. Her instincts are Tory." What of the future? What of Ffion and William if the Tories are crushed at the election; what happens if Hague fails to eat into Blair's majority in any convincing way and is ousted in a leadership battle? "There are people who don't think she'll stick with him after the election," said one friend from Cardiff. "I think there's more to the relationship than the chance of a ticket to number 10." So do I.

Professionally the clever Mrs Hague has been planning ahead. She has already had two successful careers, in the civil service and the world of arts and business sponsorship. She is now on to her third as a head-hunter, is earning mega-bucks (reportedly anything up to £250,000 a year) and is said to be thriving. It is in her work that her talent for organisation, her decisiveness, her charm person-to person, are most effective; it is the public performer aspects of political life that suit her less well. "She's found a new spring in her step and a new confidence and certainty about herself," says her friend McDonough. And it isn't just something she has stumbled into as a career - every step Ffion Hague takes, whether it's professionally or personally, is carefully considered. You can count on it. "She's quite a serious and thoughtful person who would look at her own career development and personal growth quite intensely, more intensely than a lot of people might. The steps she has taken have been part of a quite carefully thought out progression," says McDonough. Politically, however, the future is grim for the Hagues.

She can only hope that her own stock is not damaged by her husband's fate at the polls. "She must have taken a fairly realistic look at what's likely to happen," saysMcDonough. "She's mature enough and confident enough, both in herself and in her relationship with William to be quite philosophical about the changing fortunes of politics. It might reduce the extent of her public profile, but I think she would probably be quite relieved to be able to get on with her own life without people looking at where she bought her last dress or suit or whatever." And presumably she won't miss the weekly call by lobby correspondents enquiring whether she is pregnant yet." Whatever happens to William, Ffion Hague's future looks bright, but then it always did - long before that late summer's evening, in the foothills of Snowdonia, singing to the young politician who looked set for stardom. At the time of their engagement, it might have looked as if the ambitious, young civil servant from Cardiff was bettering herself. These days, it's the other way round and William Hague will be desperately hoping that his wife's golden touch might rub off on him.

William Hague - Biography - IMDb William Hague Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (3) Overview (3) 5' 10" (1.78 m) Mini Bio (1) William Jefferson Hague was born on 26 March 1961 in Rotherham, Yorkshire. He was educated at Wath-upon-Deane Comprehensive School and was regarded by many of his teachers as a model pupil - hard-working, well behaved and a credit to the school. It was during his youth that he developed his passion for Conservativism. Aged just 16, he addressed the 1977 Conservative Party Conference with a spirit, humour and conviction that led then Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher to describe him as the next William Pitt. His academic success made it possible for him to study at Magdalen College, Oxford. He went into politics, was elected Conservative Member for Richmond and served in John Major's cabinet as Welsh Secretary (during which time he met his future wife, Ffion). After the Conservatives' landslide defeat at the hands of New Labour in 1997, John Major resigned as Tory leader.

In the resultant leadership election, William, aged just 36, was chosen to lead the party. As leader, William failed to dent Prime Minister Tony Blair's consistently high public ratings. He also became ridiculed for a series of misjudgments, such as his decision to wear a baseball cap to appeal to young voters, his boast that he had regularly drunk 14 pints of beer a day as a young man, his judo sessions and his wisecracking comments at Prime Minister's Questions. He fought the 2001 General Election on the issues of keeping the pound and rejecting the European Single Currency, locking up all asylum seekers and lowering the tax burden. His failure to make any clear commitments to better public services was regarded by many as severely damaging to his election chances. On June 7, the Conservatives were resoundingly beaten by the Labour Party for a second successive time. Although he was re-elected to his Richmond seat, Hague resigned as Tory leader the next day. He became only the second Conservative Party leader in the history of British politics never to serve as Prime Minister. His future is uncertain, although careers in either enterprise or broadcasting are realistic possibilities.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous Spouse (1) William Hague - Everything2.com William Hague Sat Aug 19 2000 at 22:02:55 DOB: 26/3/1961 Education: Wath-on-Dearne Comprehensive School( Rotherham ), Magdalen College at Oxford University , as well as INSEAD Business School, France . William Hague is the leader of the opposition parties in Britain, which is a role he assumed automatically by being the leader of the second largest political party currently in parliament , the Conservatives . He is also the Member of Parliament for Richmond in Yorkshire. He held numerous low level ministerial posts in the Conservative government of the 90s, before becoming party leader after the Conservatives lost the 1997 general election to Tony Blair 's Labour Party . The only other thing of interest about this man is that he married Ffion Jenkins in December 1997, who some may consider a bit of a fox , not me though, I think it is unwise to say such things about the wives of high powered politicians .

nb this man is a complete fucking idiot UPDATE - Resigned after losing the 2001 june election to the Labour party, his succesor is yet unclear. by Oolong Tue Apr 17 2001 at 16:52:19 Former Tory party leader. A frustrated stand-up comedian with an extraordinarily silly voice . He almost single-handedly succeeded in turning the Conservative Party from one viewed by many with bilious hatred , to one which people largely just laugh at. It is quite possible that this was his plan all along; people are much less likely to bother to vote against a party they view with derision than they are against one they really hate , and they know all too well that they lost the 1997 election as a result of droves of people turning up to vote against them. Interestingly, politicians of every stripe seem to take him a lot more seriously than the public at large. Following the Tories ' second crushing electoral defeat in a row in the UK General Election, 2001 , William Hague was replaced by Iain Duncan Smith , another bald, uncharismatic man whom nobody had ever heard of before his leadership challenge.

This seems to be entirely due to his main opposition for the post, Kenneth Clarke - a fat, likeable former Chancellor of the Exchequer known as much for his love of booze and tobacco as for his politics - being too left-wing for much of his party as far as social issues are concerned. The other potential contender for the title, Michael Portillo , had once been a favourite of the right wing of the Conservative Party , but a couple of years ago he announced that he was gay - or at least had 'had homosexual experiences in his youth' - and after that seemed to shift a long way towards the liberal end of the liberal - conservative spectrum, leaving people with very little idea where he was coming from. by Gritchka Tue Apr 17 2001 at 19:51:48 William Hague has got what is known in the business as an image problem . The problem is essentially that most of the public think of him as a complete prat . Gritchka thinks a moment... The deeper problem is that he is a complete prat. To cover this up, various solutions have been proposed by his image-conscious minders.

The rot set in when he was a schoolboy and Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, and he got up and made a precocious speech at the Conservative Party Conference, and was applauded by the Transylvanian potentates, Chilean air force colonels, and certifiably mad Masters of Fox Hounds who make up the rank and file of the party. He thought he knew everything then and he has not progressed. He is balding. Nothing wrong with this, of course. Nothing wrong with a bald know-it-all schoolboy. He was Secretary of State for Wales under John Major , and wanted to learn Welsh . So he got his assistant, Ms Ffion Jenkins , to take him up onto a hillside and teach him. His idea of a good time with Ffion Jenkins was learning how to say Llanfairpwllgwyngyll . Since becoming leader after Major quit (and no-one has ever managed to work out how that happened; my theory is that all the senior candidates were too busy arguing with each other to notice little William saying "moved", "seconded", "all in favour" to himself in one corner), he has adopted a number of image s.

He was photographed in a baseball cap with the word HAGUE written on it. He wore it front-to-front. So much for the youth vote . He was photographed sliding down a water slide . Was he trying for the under-fives vote ? He and Ffion were seen at the Notting Hill Carnival having fun. See, I'm the dour balding know-it-all leader of the Ship The Darkies Back Where They Came From Party but I love these steel band s and reggae , me. He gave Ffion a token of his affection. A little pendant . It was a pound sign . Yup, it was. I suppose having "British Beef Means British Jobs" tattooed across her upper arm would have been too expensive, so he settled for a symbol of the "No Euro s Here, Mate" campaign . What other prattish things has he done? Let me think... Action Man . He was pictured riding on a tank , if my memory doesn't deceive me. Okay, all politicians do this, and maybe I'm making this one up, but he still looked like a schoolboy and the Action Man phase came as a response to the non-success of the water-slide and frontways baseball cap phase.

Isn't he some kind of karate black belt? Or something* belt? They emphasized something of that nature for a while. Hague's been through so many unavailing makeovers that I'm forgetting them. Recently he's been a jolly Jack-the-lad . He revealed that when he was a boy he would drink fourteen pints a day, travelling around doing deliveries for a brewer. Publicans queued up to confirm that one, of course. "No, can't recall him. Know-it-all balding little bugger with an annoying voice? I would have thrown him out if he'd ever shown his nose in my pub." -- And of course this did wonders for the drink driver and unemployed youth votes. On the plus side, Hague can be funny. He's got a dry wit and a reasonably good sense of timing in parliamentary questions. So that's a big advantage. Remember how much better US Supreme Court decisions became when they replaced Rehnquist with Shari Lewis that year?

There will probably be a general election in June, which he will lose, after which he will be replaced as party leader by Michael Portillo , Ann Widdecombe , or a sock puppet .** by Tiefling Fri Jun 08 2001 at 10:56:33 At shortly before eight o'clock BST on Friday, June 9, 2001 , William Hague resigned as leader of the Conservative Party . Even given Michael Portillo 's loyalty to Mr Hague in the face of suggestions he was about to stab his leader in the back, it's not at all clear at this stage who will replace Hague. For some reason, the BBC keep alluding to Iain Duncan Smith as a potential candidate, despite the fact that (outside his very safe seat) the people who have heard of this Thatcher ite Tory boy consider him to be a dead loss and the surest thing to make the Conservative s the third party for good. William Hague's resignation speech was typical of its genre: hiding the information in a welter of hot air about the challenges facing the party. Postscript: They did choose Duncan Smith, with (as of late 2002) predictably lame results.

Thu Feb 14 2008 at 20:35:52 British Conservative Politician Born 1961 William Hague is the former Leader of the Conservative Party (1997-2001), now Shadow Foreign Secretary and the Member of Parliament for Richmond since 1989. Early Life William Jefferson Hague was born at Wentworth village in Rotherham on the 26th March 1961, where his father Timothy Nigel Hague ran the family firm Hague's Soft Drinks . He was educated at Wath-on-Dearne Comprehensive School in Rotherham and Magdalen College, Oxford where he was President of the Union and of the Oxford University Conservative Association . After graduating with a first in politics, economics and philosophy he attented the INSEAD Business School to study for an MBA . He briefly worked for Shell Oil as a management trainee but left after only a year to work for the management consultants McKinsey and Co , although he also moonlighted as a political adviser to the Treasury during the 1980s.

From an early age William had nurtured political ambitions, being the original ' Tory Boy ' who appeared as a sixteen year-old at the party conference in 1977 and made a speech denouncing the Labour government. After unsuccessfully contesting his home constituency of Wentworth in 1987, he was selected as the Conservative PPC for the safe seat of Richmond in north Yorkshire , taking over from Leon Brittain who had resigned the seat to take up the post of European Commissioner and so found himself elected to Parliament in a by-election held on the 23rd February 1989. Within a year or so he found himself serving Norman Lamont , then Chancellor of the Exchequer , as his Parliamentary Private Secretary , and in 1993 got his first real government job when he became Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security . In the following year was promoted to the post of Minister of Social Security where he remained until 1995 when John Major promoted him to the Cabinet as the Secretary of State for Wales . Of course William Hague wasn't Welsh and indeed had no connections with Wales as such, but then neither did anyone else on the Conservative front bench at the time.

But as a result of his regular trips to Cardiff , Hague ended up making the acquaintance of one Ffion Jenkins , who has since become Mrs Hague. The Party Leader Following the Conservative's disastrous showing in the 1997 General Election, the defeated John Major resigned as party leader and William entered the race to succeed him. Hague was clearly identified as being on the centre right of the party, and thus although he trailed Kenneth Clarke in the first two ballots, he was able to see off his more right-wing rivals and easily defeated Clarke in the final run off by 92 votes to 70 on the 19th June 1997, becoming the youngest ever leader of the Party as well as the first to have attended a comprehensive school . Once elected Hague launched his ' Fresh Start ' policy with the intention of re-invigorating and renewing the Conservative Party, whilst he adopted a distinctly sceptical policy on Europe. He announced his opposition to the Amsterdam Treaty and advocated renegotiating the Treaty of Rome , he promoted such Eurosceptics as Iain Duncan Smith and David Heathcote-Amory whilst noted pro-Europeans such as David Curry and Ian Taylor resigned from the front bench.

However, although he overwhelmingly won a ballot of Conservative party members in support of this policy, he was unable to contrive a genuine party unity, and the running dispute between the pro and anti European factions, continued to bedevil his position in the party. This was not however the only problem that he faced, thanks to the activities of those christened the ' Portallistas ' by the British media. The thing was that when John Major resigned as party leader, the favourite to succeed him would have been Michael Portillo , except for the little fact that Portillo had been one of the casualties of the 1997 electoral disaster and had lost his seat in the Commons. But following the death of Alan Clark , Portillo was selected as his replacement in Kensington and Chelsea and returned to the House when he won the by-election in late November 1999. At the time there were many in the party, not least Portillo himself, who felt that, notwithstanding the party's decision in 1997, their man should be propelled to the top job as soon as possible. The 'Portallistas', as they were called, were widely believed to be actively seeking to undermine Hague's leadership.

Hague may have hoped to have co-opted their support when he appointed Portillo to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chancellor on the 1st February 2000. But Portillo promptly made a pronouncement in the House of Commons that a future Conservative government would respect the independence of the Bank of England and would not repeal the national minimum wage , and was thus seen to be following his own independent policy line, and further undermining Hague's authority. Hague had always been regarded as an accomplished performer in the House of Commons, and during his time as leader he "skewered a popular Labour government again and again", making a number of witty and often devastating assaults on the Prime Minister. But whilst this won him the admiration of the writers of commons sketches this made little impression on the rest of the population which takes little notice of events on the floor of the House of Commons. Indeed William's public perception appeared to be quite different; as respected as he was in the House of Commons, many of the public refused to take him that seriously. One of his major problems was escaping from what Max Clifford called the image of the "the sweet, precocious, 16-year-old cherub who stood up at the Conservative Party conference".

His appearances at the Notting Hill Carnival and Alton Towers complete with a baseball cap fixed on his head served only to convince many that he was simply trying too hard. (Not to mention his claim in GQ Magazine that he used to drink up to fourteen pints of beer a day during his holiday job making deliveries for his father's business.) Hague did achieve some electoral success, both in Local and European elections where the Conservative Party made some significant gains. However as far as the 2001 General Election was concerned he decided to campaign on the patrotic platform of "Elect a Conservative government and we will give you back your country", and made his famous speech at Loughborough in May 2001, when he spoke of there being "Twelve days to save the pound. Twelve days to secure our independence. Twelve days to decide whether our children and grandchildren will inherit the same freedoms that we inherited in our turn." (All of which is said to have dismayed the left of the party who saw it all as being a trifle xenophobic.) In any event the Conservatives won only 166 seats at the 2001 General Election, just one more than it had managed in 1997.

Hague promptly resigned lamenting that "we have not been able to persuade a majority, or anything approaching a majority, that we are yet the alternative government that they need." That night he said to have drunk a bottle of champagne and woken up to find that a thoughtful neighbour had left him a teach-yourself book on the piano so that he could fill his time. After the Leadership After resigning the leadership Hague took up his thoughtful neighbour's suggestion and did indeed learn to play the piano, although he also spent his time "making £630,000 a year advising companies and giving speeches", earning up to £10,000 a time on the after-dinner circuit as well as writing a column for the News of the World . His newly established status as the highest earning Member of Parliament, was further enhanced by the publication of a number of biographies, the first of which was William Pitt the Younger in 2004, (which was chosen as the History Book of the Year, in the British Book Awards for 2005) followed by William Wilberforce in 2007, with William Pitt the Elder apparently next on the list to be tackled.

With the election of David Cameron as Party leader in December 2005 he returned to front bench politics as Shadow Foreign Secretary, a decision that was said to have cost him some £500,000 a year in lost earnings from the above mentioned after-dinner speeches and journalism. However despite this apparent act of self-sacrifice, William continued to act as the parliamentaty adviser for JCB , Terra Capital Partners , and Dunalastair Ireland , and remained in demand as an after dinner speaker on the awards circuit, and so continued to bring home a six-figure sum on top of his parliamentary salary. William has however emerged as a keen advocate of the Cameron agenda to project the image of a younger and more modern Conservative party, and has often deputised in the Commons for David Cameron, when the latter has been absent (such as the occasion when Cameron was off on paternity leave early in 2006). Indeed it is worth remembering, that as far as the Conservative frontbench is now concerned, William is one of the very few that has any prior experience of government, and therefore takes on something of the role of the elder statesman.

Whilst the public perception of William as "naive and nerdy" might still persist, within the House of Commons he is regarded as an accomplished and professional politician; David Blunkett once expressed the opinion that Hague was "pushed into the job too early", and noted that this was a "great relief to all of us on my side of the political fence!" SOURCES "Hague, William" A Dictionary of Political Biography. Ed. Dennis Kavanagh. Oxford University Press, 1998. Oxford Reference Online. HAGUE, Rt Hon.

William (Jefferson)’, Who's Who 2008, A & C Black, 2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 Rt Hon William Hague MP Hague: I drank 14 pints a day, BBC News, 8 August, 2000 Hague plays 'patriot' card, BBC News, 4 March, 2001, 16:28 GMT Hague: Twelve Days to Keep the Pound Saturday May 26, 2001 Profile: William Hague, BBC News, 8 June, 2001 Roy Stone, Don't be Vague, Count on Hague, Anthony Browne and Sam Coates, Hague pays dearly for his promotion to the Shadow Cabinet, November 10, 2006

Question: Whom did Ffion Jenkins many in 1997?
Answer: William Hague